Canada’s strained health-care system may be losing the equivalent of thousands of doctors not to retirement or emigration, but to paperwork.
A new report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) suggests that cutting unnecessary administrative work could free up enough physician time to equal more than 9,000 full-time doctors available to see patients.
According to the findings, Canadian physicians spend more than one full working day each week on administrative tasks that do not require medical training. Over the course of a year, that adds up to nearly 200 hours per doctor roughly the equivalent of an entire month of lost clinical work.
When tallied nationwide, the burden translates into an estimated 19.8 million physician hours annually consumed by paperwork.
While bureaucratic demands affect physicians across all specialties, family doctors carry the heaviest load. In a video accompanying the report, CMA President Dr. Margot Burnell called this trend especially troubling given Canada’s persistent shortage of primary care providers.
“Every minute lost to red tape is a minute patients spend waiting,” Burnell said, noting that administrative overload is directly linked to longer wait times and reduced access to care.
The CMA estimates that 6.5 million people in Canada currently do not have a regular family doctor or nurse practitioner. At the same time, the country produces only about 7.5 new doctors per 100,000 people—around half the average among OECD nations. Canada is facing a shortfall of nearly 23,000 family physicians compared with population needs.
With just 1,300 new medical graduates entering the system each year, the CMA warns that physician shortages will persist unless systemic issues—like excessive paperwork—are addressed.
The report draws on a survey of nearly 2,000 physicians nationwide, including general practitioners, medical specialists, and surgeons. The results paint a stark picture of the toll bureaucracy is taking on the medical workforce.
93% of doctors said administrative work disrupts their work–life balance, 90% reported that it contributes to burnout, more than half plan to reduce their working hours, One in four is considering leaving the profession or retiring earlier than planned within the next two years
These trends, the authors warn, threaten to further weaken an already overstretched health-care system.
Doctors identified health system processes and insurance-related paperwork as the largest sources of unnecessary administrative work. Other major contributors include government programs, pharmacies, employers, and inefficient electronic medical record systems that do not communicate well with one another.
Reducing administrative burdens could deliver immediate benefits for both doctors and patients. Nearly 80 percent of surveyed physicians said they would use reclaimed time to improve their work–life balance. Importantly, 44 percent said they would spend more time with existing patients, and 43 percent said they would take on new patients.
The report urges governments to streamline health system processes, improve interoperability between medical record systems, and eliminate redundant forms and approvals. It also recommends shifting certain administrative duties to trained support staff, guaranteeing protected and paid administrative time, simplifying insurance procedures, and expanding the use of artificial intelligence to handle routine tasks.
The message from researchers is clear: easing the paperwork burden will not solve Canada’s doctor shortage overnight but it could unlock thousands of doctor-equivalents already in the system, waiting behind a desk.
